PPC Case Study - Safestore Ltd

Background

Safestore Holdings plc is a FTSE All-Share self storage company, listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Safestore is the UK’s largest and Europe’s second largest provider of self storage solutions.

Their principal operations are located in the UK, where they have 95 stores including 3 business centres with a further 22 stores in Europe. These figures are correct as of June 2010.
Safestore approached SEO City in 2009 for Search Engine Optimisation services and soon extended their partnership by allowing SEO City to manage their Google PPC advertising account. Safestore were looking for a partner they could trust to keep driving the growth of the company in cost effective and flexible way. To this day the relationship between Safestore and SEO City grows stronger and stronger as we continuously adapt to the online market conditions and generate growth through increased market penetration.

Strategy

With over 90 stores in the UK the PPC campaign for Safestore presented many challenges ranging from account size, to geographic locations to individual store campaigns. With so many stores throughout the UK all wanting to compete locally this required a large change to the existing PPC account structure. Many of the existing features inherent in Google Adwords system required utilising to their full potential in order to control the local positions relating to a geographical search query for storage related terms. Also the management of the account need to take into account fast local changes to advertising and the variation in messages required for the different demographics around the county. For example, ad copy for a specific phrase would behave and convert differently in London as it would in Manchester.

Building the account to allow for these variations allowed SEO City to show their account design and creation skills while maintaining and improving on existing results.

Key targets and how SEO City achieved these targets are shown in the table below:

Targets

Solution

Maintain Position above specific competitors

By improving the CTR of the advertising copy and testing various types of ad copy in differing locations SEO City have increased the visibility of Safestore adverts in the search results.

Keep conversion costs stable

By continuous refinement and optimisation we have removed non performing keyword phrases and match types and boosted terms that convert within an acceptable cost per acquisition.

Increase conversions

By boosting the best performing terms and seeking out new keyword phrases we have achieve increased conversions

Reduce account wastage

By detailed analytical approach we have removed waste keywords and match types.

Focus attention on locality of stores to the customers

We have focussed the account in very specific geographic locations due to the locality of the storage service. The account previously focussed on the entire UK, now advertising spend is not used in locations free from Safestore Storage facilities.

Conclusion

With SEO City taking control of the account in April 2009 conversions have significantly risen with a stable const per conversion. Safestore’s average search positions were required to increase in response to competition but SEO City have worked to reduce any associated increase in conversion cost by improving conversion rates.
The working relationship between Safestore and SEO City thrives due to our close working partnership. By being included in the Safestore monthly website review meetings SEO City can advise on how to test and improve campaigns to continue online conversions.